Nutrition

Couldn’t resist this little snippet! Apparently, if you zap sweet potatoes with an electric current can boost levels of antioxidants by as much as 60%, according a new study. The days of electrical nutrition have arrived! Actually, it makes sense: if you stress the vegetables, they release more antioxidants to protect themselves. It reminds me of the old (wicked) Chinese belief that if you torture the pig before eating it, the flesh tastes better. Add that to Cleve Backster’s discovery that plants know what’s going on and you’ll see what I mean. I don’t think I can bring myself to deliberately “hurt” sweet potatoes, just to enrich them nutritionally*. Nevertheless, the science is there…

You can imagine this kind of conversation: Dr A: Nutrition improves body function. Omega-3s are good… Dr B: I doubt it but I have heard rumors; something about reducing risk of heart disease. Dr A: Not just that, all body function. Even sexual performance and fertility. Dr B: How can that be? Dr A: Sexual performance is part of body function… Dr B: The dirty stuff? That’s not physiology! I despair sometimes of my colleagues. Don’t they get it? Physiology is all of body function: everything. Penises, ovaries, testicles and vulva! Now they have made a wonderful discovery: if you eat right, you can be more fertile! It’s been in my health books since 1985 but it’s still considered ludicrous. Pre-conceptual nutrition is vital for healthy reproduction. Vets know this. Animals in poor shape are never sent to stud. But humans?

You can imagine this kind of conversation: Dr A: Nutrition improves body function. Omega-3s are good… Dr B: I doubt it but I have heard rumors; something about reducing risk of heart disease. Dr A: Not just that, all body function. Even sexual performance and fertility. Dr B: How can that be? Dr A: Sexual performance is part of body function… Dr B: The dirty stuff? That’s not physiology! I despair sometimes of my colleagues. Don’t they get it? Physiology is all of body function: everything. Penises, ovaries, testicles and vulva! Now they have made a wonderful discovery: if you eat right, you can be more fertile! It’s been in my health books since 1985 but it’s still considered ludicrous. Pre-conceptual nutrition is vital for healthy reproduction. Vets know this. Animals in poor shape are never sent to stud. But humans?

Vitamin K, the “forgotten” vitamin, is actually a mixture of two natural forms: K1 and K2. There are synthetic forms: K3 – K5 and it may appear that these can be somewhat toxic. Vitamin K was identified in 1929 by Danish scientist Henrik Dam. He found deficiency of vitamin K caused spontaneous hemorrhages (bleeding) and restoring levels of K returned the blood to normal. It was named vitamin K, from the German word Koagulation (clotting); nothing to do with the sequence of letters starting A, B, C, D, etc. Warfarin (Coumadin®) is an anticoagulant drug that works by inhibiting normal vitamin K function in the body. But the price for doing that is very high, as we shall see. Vitamin K was also called phylloquinone or phytomenadione. It is synthesized by plants, is found in green leafy vegetables, and can be found in soybean oil. Well, I learned about that over 40 years ago in med school. But knowledge has progressed by leaps and bounds since then.

Vitamin K, the “forgotten” vitamin, is actually a mixture of two natural forms: K1 and K2. There are synthetic forms: K3 – K5 and it may appear that these can be somewhat toxic. Vitamin K was identified in 1929 by Danish scientist Henrik Dam. He found deficiency of vitamin K caused spontaneous hemorrhages (bleeding) and restoring levels of K returned the blood to normal. It was named vitamin K, from the German word Koagulation (clotting); nothing to do with the sequence of letters starting A, B, C, D, etc. Warfarin (Coumadin®) is an anticoagulant drug that works by inhibiting normal vitamin K function in the body. But the price for doing that is very high, as we shall see. Vitamin K was also called phylloquinone or phytomenadione. It is synthesized by plants, is found in green leafy vegetables, and can be found in soybean oil. Well, I learned about that over 40 years ago in med school. But knowledge has progressed by leaps and bounds since then.

Those who are new to this list may not follow my joke: I Told ‘Em! is one of those stories where I was saying it over 30 years ago and is has just recently been “discovered”! Often I was scolded or derided at the time–and then science came around to prove that what I was saying is true–and was true, all along. This time we are back to how bad milk is for us humans: yes, even raw milk, which many folks can’t get their head round. They just LOVE the raw milk propaganda and cannot be swayed by mere facts. In this instance, I have pointed out in just about every book I wrote since 1985 that milk causes osteoporosis. It’s simple, if you ask the right questions: US women have the highest intake of dairy produce in the world; they also have the highest rate of hip fractures (more women die of fracture of the neck of femur than die of breast cancer!) Chinese women do not drink milk and the disease osteoporosis is virtually unknown. The sad truth is that milk actually causes malabsorption. It LOWERS calcium levels and leads to osteoporosis.

The hidden cause of weight gain? Have we been missing something all these years? Obviously, the main cause of weight gain is over-eating. But is there something behind that—something driving the overeating—that nobody has noticed? I think so—and now people are beginning to recognize its importance. Other Causes We know that MSG in food is addictive and causes people to over eat. We know that eating carbs is highly addictive, with people being driven by blood sugar spikes, followed by a drop in blood sugar. Refined carbs are the worst. A few of us pioneers back in the 70s and 80s discovered that food addiction is often related to food allergies and that too drives people to binge eating. In fact it’s the chief mechanism behind eating disorders, if only more people knew it. We know that insulin resistance (the early stage of diabetes) blocks glucose uptake by cells, which is then diverted to the liver and stowed away at fat. We know that psychological hang ups can lead to “comfort eating”. But there is something else? You betcha… Antibiotics! I could kick myself for not thinking of this, decades ago. But we know that farmers feed their livestock on antibiotics, to make them grow. Pigs, lambs and sheep can be up 40% bigger and fatter, because of this antibiotic treatment. But we never thought “well, that must apply to humans too”; duh!

The hidden cause of weight gain? Have we been missing something all these years? Obviously, the main cause of weight gain is over-eating. But is there something behind that—something driving the overeating—that nobody has noticed? I think so—and now people are beginning to recognize its importance. Other Causes We know that MSG in food is addictive and causes people to over eat. We know that eating carbs is highly addictive, with people being driven by blood sugar spikes, followed by a drop in blood sugar. Refined carbs are the worst. A few of us pioneers back in the 70s and 80s discovered that food addiction is often related to food allergies and that too drives people to binge eating. In fact it’s the chief mechanism behind eating disorders, if only more people knew it. We know that insulin resistance (the early stage of diabetes) blocks glucose uptake by cells, which is then diverted to the liver and stowed away at fat. We know that psychological hang ups can lead to “comfort eating”. But there is something else? You betcha… Antibiotics! I could kick myself for not thinking of this, decades ago. But we know that farmers feed their livestock on antibiotics, to make them grow. Pigs, lambs and sheep can be up 40% bigger and fatter, because of this antibiotic treatment. But we never thought “well, that must apply to humans too”; duh!

Chocolate, we know, is good for us. But even the fatty, sticky, sugary sort? Yes, apparently! According to Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues, who detailed their findings in a research letter published in the March 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. A recent study showed that frequent chocolate consumption was associated with lower body mass index (BMI), even when adjusting for calorie intake, saturated fat intake, and mood.

Chocolate, we know, is good for us. But even the fatty, sticky, sugary sort? Yes, apparently! According to Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues, who detailed their findings in a research letter published in the March 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. A recent study showed that frequent chocolate consumption was associated with lower body mass index (BMI), even when adjusting for calorie intake, saturated fat intake, and mood.

Magnesium is enormously powerful at cooling the “fire” of inflammation. Yet it is the commonest mineral deficiency in our diets. The majority of people are not coming anywhere near the RDA minimum of 350 mg. Researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina measured blood inflammation levels–using the C-reactive protein (CRP) test–in 3,800 men and […]